The Emperor Has No Clothes

On September 17, 1859, Joshua Abraham Norton, dissatisfied with the “evils under which the country [was] laboring,” hand-delivered a letter to the San Francisco Evening Bulletin declaring himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States.  The absurdity of this declaration was no doubt obvious to the paper’s editors and yet they printed the letter in the evening edition of the paper beginning what would be Norton’s 21-year “reign” as emperor.  During this time Norton:

• Issued decrees abolishing the United States Congress.

• Summoned the Army to depose elected officials.

• Dissolved the republic in favor of a monarchy.

• Abolished both the Democratic and Republican parties.

• Issued his own currency.

While the 1870 U.S. census listed Norton’s occupation as "Emperor," it also noted that he was insane.  This did not deter many of the citizens of the city from humoring, if not embracing him.  While most of his imperial acts were ignored, his currency was accepted by some restaurants and he was supported by charitable contributions, in the form of money, food, rent, and personal effects, which he referred to as his “taxes.”

Was Norton a con man or suffering from schizophrenia?  It’s unlikely that we will ever know.  What we can say with certainty, however, is that he was not the emperor of the United States.  However, as he was one man and those who humored him went along voluntarily, he did little if any harm.  His tenuous relationship with reality did not pose a danger to himself, those around him, or society in general.  Had there been thousands like him claiming to be emperor and had they insisted that others believe their personal “reality” it would likely have been a different story. 

Unfortunately for us, that is the situation we find ourselves in today. Unlike Emperor Norton whose impact was minimal and ignorable, radical trans activists and their allies in the media are insisting that tolerance is not enough.  Instead, we are being told, not asked, to validate the beliefs of a group of people who have either a tenuous hold on reality or are intent on redefining it to suit their personal preferences.  They insist one’s gender is something that can be chosen, often varying on a daily or hourly basis.

I have been asked on occasion why it bothers me so much.  What harm can there be in calling people by the pronoun they wish to use?  On the surface, it seems like a harmless enough request, and if this were occurring on a smaller scale and indicative of a “fad,” I might shrug it off as no doubt many in San Francisco shrugged off the antics of Emperor Norton.  However, it has become a much larger issue and it has moved beyond using one’s “preferred pronouns” to an insistence that reality is not rational, determinable, and objective. 

It instead is governed by the subjective feelings of individuals who, with the assistance of “magic words” (pronouns) and personal feelings, can redefine reality itself and insist that the rest of us comply with their beliefs.  What’s more, it has moved beyond insisting on “preferred pronouns” and “inclusive” language that posits that women can have penises and that men can menstruate and has begun to include demands that society at large adopt the ideology that transwomen and transmen are women and men.  Recent examples of these demands include:

• Passing laws requiring the placement of tampon dispensers in men’s bathrooms. 

• Allowing transwomen to compete in women’s sports.  Examples of the predictable results include:

  • University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming competition in Division I.

  • Tiffany Newell, a trans woman set a national record in Canadian women's running.

  • Avi Silverberg, a male powerlifting coach broke the Alberta women’s bench-press record in an act of protest against the presiding organization’s lenient trans-inclusion policy which allows men to declare themselves women and compete without the need to suppress their testosterone levels.

• Permitting transgender inmates to be placed according to their preference.  Jurisdictions that have adopted this policy or are considering it include:

  • Canada

  • California

  • New Jersey

  • Maine

Transgender ideology is founded to some extent on post modernism.  While it is beyond the capabilities of this article to delve into the intricacies of this philosophy, suffice it to say that its adherents are "skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups.  It focuses on the relative truths of each person" and consider "reality" to be a mental construct.  It is the philosophy of a bong smoker and yet it has captured the minds of a portion of the population who now believe that reality is subjective.  If there is no objective reality, how do we define anything?  What is a woman?  What is a man?  What is a human?  Ah, and here arrive at the problem, the underlying danger that we face when we allow people to oppose objective reality. 

If I can change the definition of “man” and “woman,” why not the definition of “human?”  If we have overruled science by stating that gender is dependent on an individual’s subjective reality, why can’t we do the same for species? If reality is a “mental construct” why should my reality apply only to me?  In the absence of scientific reason, it is a small step from “I decide if I’m a woman” to “I determine who is a woman” to “I decide who is a human.”  In permitting this have I not been granted the power to commit unspeakable evil by proclaiming that my enemies are in fact not people but something else, something sub-human, something worthy of eradication?  What is the harm indeed?

Tolerance, first manifested as religious tolerance, a central doctrine of the Enlightenment, was instrumental in establishing the rights and freedoms that we enjoy today.  Tolerance permits me to believe what I wish and demands I allow you to do the same.  Tolerance, however, does not mandate agreement or celebration. You and I are free to believe what we wish but are not permitted to force that belief on others.  Post modernism, and by extension transgenderism, are rejections of Enlightenment rationality.  This was a minor issue when they were obscure philosophies largely contained in academia, the secular equivalent of debating “[h]ow many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”  Like religion though, they are dangerous in the hands of fanatics who reject tolerance and demand that we both adhere to and celebrate the tenets upon which their beliefs are based.  

Allowing transgender activists to spread and enforce a belief system that enables them to reject science and redefine reality based on their own personal feelings is a slow road to hell.  No, it is best that we agree that while the reasons for our actions and our interpretations of events may be subjective, the actions, and the reality in which they are performed, are objective and immutable.  The alternative is too horrifying to imagine.  It is time to push back against the demands of trans activists and insist on scientific rationalism.  As Voltaire wisely said, “[t]hose who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”